Joan Morgan, 99; British Silent Screen Star, Scriptwriter, Novelist

Joan Morgan, 99, a British silent screen star, scriptwriter and novelist who later turned to converting old buildings into homes, died July 22 in a nursing home at Henley-on-Thames, England, of natural causes.

The London-born daughter of film director Sidney Morgan and actress Evelyn Wood, she began acting at age 8 and by 15 was assuming lead roles in films made by her father and other directors. She traveled to New York in 1920 to film “The Road to London” with Bryant Washburn, and was offered a Hollywood contract, but her father rejected it.

The young actress rated as the favorite of her dozen or so movie roles her part as the little seamstress in her father’s 1920 “Little Dorrit,” adapted from the Charles Dickens novel. She made one talking picture, “Her Reputation,” in 1931. But as the British film industry waned in competition with Hollywood, she abandoned acting for writing.

In addition to plays and movie scripts, Morgan wrote several novels in the 1940s and 1950s, including “Citizen of Westminster,” “Ding Dong Dell” and “The Hanging Wood.” After she made a third career of converting old churches, toll houses and other buildings into housing, she wrote a book about that work, “The Casebook of Capability Morgan,” in 1965.